Sonic Acts x Stedelijk Museum: The Mini Sound Series and other performances

Sonic Acts and Stedelijk have commissioned SUPREME CONNECTIONS to create a new interpretive, episodic iteration of Maryanne Amacher's "Mini Sound Series”. Amacher (1938–2009) – whose work was featured by Sonic Acts several times – was a pioneering American composer known for impressive architecturally staged sound works and groundbreaking research-based acoustic art designed to awaken our psycho-acoustic responses to sound. As Amacher's ideas about music, sound, and listening were far ahead of her time, her legacy remains enormously inspiring. Described by Amacher as an evolving sound work 'to be continued', "The Mini Sound Series" is conceived as an alternative to both installation and concert formats. In addition, Dutch artists Gijs Gieskes, Geert-Jan Hobijn and Radboud Mens will present their new formation Ohm, with fresh self built electro-acoustic and electro-mechanical instruments. Composer and vocalist Jennifer Walshe will perform solo and with the Arditti Quartet. The world's first microtonal tuba ensemble Microtub (Robin Hayward, Peder Simonsen and Martin Taxt) will be digging deeper into the sphere of just intonation, and Cilantro, the duo of Angélica Castelló and Billy Roisz present a post-noise world full of enigmas. 

Click here to download the schedule for the festival. 

SUPREME CONNECTIONS presents Maryanne Amacher's "Mini Sound Series"

In 2012 a group of Maryanne Amacher's collaborators joined forces to collectively engage with the questions of the posthumous life of their friend's work. Under the name SUPREME CONNECTIONS (the top secret lab featured in Amacher's unrealised treatment,Intelligent Life), the loose formation developed an approach to the radical artist's approach in keeping with its complex conception of "the work." Recreating Amacher's working methodology instead of incongruously faithful reenactments, SUPREME CONNECTIONS created a series of large-scale "hearing as if" installations at the Funkhaus (Berlin), Tate Modern, and in the Bienal de São Paulo. For Sonic Acts, SUPREME CONNECTIONS is: Amy Cimini, Bill Dietz, Kabir Carter, Keiko Prince, Sergei Tcherepnin, Stefan Tcherepnin and Woody Sullender. 

Four episodes of Mini Sound Series will occur throughout the festival, the first two taking place on Friday, accompanied by a conversation by Amy Cimini and Keiko Prince. Two more episodes will be presented on Saturday and Sunday at Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam starting at 16:00.

OHM 

Ohm is the new formation of Dutch artists Gijs Gieskes, Geert-Jan Hobijn and Radboud Mens. Gieskes is an industrial designer who specialises in the design of electronic devices for audiovisual use. Hobijn is initiator of Staalplaat Soundsystem; inseparable from his sound systems, he is known for composing with wit and wisdom. Mens is a composer and sound designer who has been working with sound since 1982.

MICROTUB 

Microtub is the world’s first microtonal tuba ensemble . In 2009, Robin Hayward developed the first fully microtonal tuba in collaboration with the German instrument manufacturer B&S, and Microtub was established the following year. Since then, they have released two albums on the Norwegian label SOFA, and in February 2017 their third album Bite of the Orange will be released on the same label. They are currently exploring the possibilities that lie in the tuning system known as Just intonation. As a tool for composing the music they are using the Hayward Tuning Vine interface.

JENNIFER WALSHE 

Jennifer Walshe was born in Dublin, Ireland in 1974. She studied composition with John Maxwell Geddes at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, Kevin Volans in Dublin and graduated from Northwestern University, Chicago, with a doctoral degree in composition in June 2002. In addition to her activities as a composer, Jennifer frequently performs as a vocalist, specialising in extended techniques.

ARDITTI QUARTET

The Arditti Quartet enjoys a world-wide reputation for their spirited and technically refined interpretations of contemporary and earlier 20th century music. Many hundreds of string quartets and other chamber works have been written for the ensemble since its foundation by first violinist Irvine Arditti in 1974. Many of these works have left a permanent mark on the contemporary repertoire and have given the Arditti Quartet a firm place in music history.

CILANTRO

Cilantro is the duo of composer and sound artist Angélica Castelló (Paetzold sub-great bass recorder, tapes, electronics, ukulele), and sound and video artist Billy Roisz (bass guitar, electronics). Their pieces hover between structure and chaos, beauty and ugliness, and demonstrate a thrilling display of human and technological interplay.

Sonic Acts X Stedelijk at De Brakke Grond

The programme for Sunday 26 February is built around the premiere of Luke Fowler’s new film Electro-Pythagorus: A Portrait of Martin Bartlett, a co-production by Sonic Acts and Stedelijk Museum. It pays tribute to the work and musical ideas of Martin Bartlett (1939–93), a proudly gay Canadian composer who during the 1970s and 1980s pioneered the use of the ‘microcomputer’.
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